Australian actor Nicole Kidman says everyone has a role to play in ending violence against women and girls that has surged in lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Oscar-winning actress, who is a UN Women’s Goodwill Ambassador, said her role in television series Big Little Lies had strengthened her stance on violence against women, calling lockdown spikes in abuse a “shadow pandemic”.

Kidman said playing lawyer and domestic abuse survivor Celeste on the hit HBO series had affected her personally.

“I felt very exposed and vulnerable and deeply humiliated as I told her story – even though playing that character is nothing compared to what women in abusive relationships actually face,” Kidman wrote in an opinion column in The Guardian newspaper.

She said the stories of survivors she had met during her United Nations work pushed her to lend her voice to those without a platform.

From Latin America to Europe, countries around the world have reported spikes in domestic violence against women during pandemic-related lockdowns.

In 2019, 243 million women and girls experienced sexual or physical violence from their partner, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women executive…